[flooow]

This story has been horribly misreported in the mainstream media. Suffice to say that the AI gaff was the very thinnest pretence for a politically motivated firing. The true reason being that West Midlands Police made the UK govt furious for suggesting that maybe Maccabi were violent thugs rather than persecuted victims, which goes against prevailing official narratives WRT Israel.

I have only found one news source that actual tells the story properly (warning, long read): https://whispering.media/the-maccabi-gospel/

[qweiopqweiop]

I'll share my opposing view point. Whilst Maccabi fans may contain hooligans, that's not really surprising for football fans. Fans travelling within Europe cause trouble all the time.

What is different, is that Maccabi fans were blocked from attending by the police/council when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment. Secondly, the police were aware of plans within the Birmingham Muslim community to attack said fans. Instead of coming down on these people planning violence, they decided to avoid the situation entirely.

Furthermore, they ignored evidence from the Amsterdam authorities who haven't said the Maccabi fans were as riotous as you claim. Using AI hallucinations was just the cherry on the cake.

[g8oz]

Maccabee fans in Amsterdam - indulged in racist chants like "Death to Arabs" and "There are no more babies in Gaza" (because they're dead)

- Beat an Arab taxi driver

- Tore a Palestinian flag from a woman's balcony and attempted to break in to the apartment.

After they FAFOd and got their asses handed to them the media treated them like the second coming of Anne Frank.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2024_Amsterdam_riots.

The "media reporting" section of the article is particularly illuminating - a Zionist influence operation was in full swing afterwards to minimize the bad behavior of the Israeli fans.

Furthermore Maccabee fans have a reputation for hooliganism in Israel itself. So the West Midlands assessment was eminently reasonable.

The manufactured storm over the decision again showcases a broader pattern of insidious Zionist influence over Western institutions. The decision was lawyered to death in a manner only Israelis get the benefit of.

[flooow]

Thank you for actually reading the article. I knew I would get many responses parroting the official narrative because that's what we're being spoonfed, but I'm glad some people are interested in understanding what really happened.

[amiga386]

You kinda forgot to mention the organised pro-Palestinian rioters, so let's add them back into your narrative.

https://news.sky.com/story/statement-by-the-amsterdam-police...

> The Amsterdam police made clear that among Maccabi supporters there were 500-800 ultras visiting the city in November 2024. Like other European ultra groups, these fans were organised and, on some occasions, seemed willing to fight. The Amsterdam police also stated that a lot of disorder in those days were the result of different groups provoking each other.

> At the same time, another development takes place - small groups of pro-Palestinian rioters actively search for individuals they perceive as Israeli, Jewish or Maccabi supporters. At 23:55pm, the first 'flash' attacks on Maccabi supporters begin at Dam Square. Several dozen violent incidents in the city centre follow. The pro-Palestinian rioters use various methods to reach their victims. Some move on foot, others use scooters or taxis to move quickly through the city. This makes it difficult for the police to intervene quickly and effectively. This proves to be a fundamentally different form of violence compared to earlier situations, which involved clashes between groups facing each other. From 1:24am onward, reports of attacks decrease, but fear among Jewish residents of Amsterdam and Israeli tourists remains high. Multiple reports come in of people feeling unsafe and not daring to leave their hotels.

The Macabbi ultras were violent and racist hooligans, as you said. But you can't excuse or leave out the behaviour of their opponents who went on a "Jew hunt" (their words!) and attacked random Jews or Israelis, unaffiliated with the football hooligans.

From your wiki link:

> Most of the people involved in the attacks on Maccabi fans were taxi drivers and youths on scooters,

So yes, if the people attacking the Maccabi fans are taxi drivers, yes, I'd expect to see taxi drivers getting beaten up right back.

> In the nights following the attacks, people thought to be Jewish continued to be targeted, including being forced out of taxis and ordered to show their passports to check if they were Israeli.

Didn't feel the need to mention this? Oh, sorry, random people being forced out of taxis to check if they're Israeli is just an overstatement by the media, "the second coming of Anne Frank", I forgot.

[Matl]

I followed this closely at the time. It was clear that Maccabi supporters were looking for a confrontation and were intimidating anyone with a Palestinian flag. They're kind of known for being massive racists[0].

A group of Maccabi Fanatics chased two men, beating one with a belt as he tried to escape in a taxi. After the police arrived, the group ran away, joining other Maccabi ultras, nearly all of whom wore black clothing instead of team colours, walking towards Rokin. This group of around 50 Maccabi supporters gathered in front of Villa Mokum, a squat where several Palestinian flags were displayed.

Why not mention this?

0 - https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/47336888/maccabi-tel-...

[amiga386]

What part of "The Macabbi ultras were violent and racist hooligans" did you miss?

Also, why not mention what happened after?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/12/18/ams...

> Over the course of the night, police monitoring Telegram and WhatsApp began to detect “messages of aggression and threats toward Maccabi supporters,” according to a report produced afterward by city authorities. The vandalism of the taxi was “oil on the fire” in a community angered by the city’s decision to let the team play, said driver Mohamed Asri, 31, who was not working but watched the chat messages that night.

> At one point, a worker at Holland Casino tipped off a WhatsApp group that Maccabi fans were outside, according to screenshots of the messages obtained by The Post with usernames redacted. Police said there was a call for taxi drivers to mobilize, and cabs began to amass at the site.

> Maccabi fans ran inside the casino and security closed the doors behind them, according to casino spokesman Ilan Sluis. A bartender across the street said a group of about 50 people tried to break into the casino by rushing the doors for about 25 minutes.

> Kobi Itzajki, 34, a Maccabi fan, had just returned to a hotel when he received a message from a friend at the casino.

> “There’s an antisemitic event here,” read a 3:17 a.m. message, reviewed by The Post. “Turkish Muslims attacked Israelis who fled here. We’re locked inside the casino, bring the police.”

> Altercations took place in other parts of the city, too. A video posted online shortly after 3 a.m. shows a man struggling to swim in an icy canal and being forced to say “Free Palestine.”

> “TOMORROW AFTER THE GAME AT NIGHT PART 2 JEW HUNT,” someone wrote in a WhatsApp group just before 4 a.m.

... and so it goes on. Please read all of it.

[Matl]

> What part of "The Macabbi ultras were violent and racist hooligans" did you miss?

The part where they initiated violence.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> if the people attacking the Maccabi fans are taxi drivers, yes, I'd expect to see taxi drivers getting beaten up right back.

You have the causality backwards: maccabi fans started attacking taxis before the latter started retaliating.

> At the same time, another development takes place - small groups of pro-Palestinian rioters actively search for individuals they perceive as Israeli, Jewish or Maccabi supporters. At 23:55pm, the first 'flash' attacks on Maccabi supporters begin at Dam Square.

Didn't feel the need to mention the lead-up to this? Everything in the article that came before this line, maybe? Here are some excerpts:

> In the early morning of 7 November, at approximately 12:20am, the control room receives reports that a group of about 50 Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are pulling a Palestinian flag off a building façade and obstructing traffic.

> Some of the supporters are wearing face coverings, shouting anti-Palestinian slogans, and harassing people.

> Of the group walking along the Rokin, several individuals remove their belts and use them to attack taxis. Scooter riders are also attacked with padlocks.

> The next day, around 12:15pm, the first [maccabi] supporters arrive, and the group quickly grows. They chant anti-Palestinian slogans.

> The fan walk begins around 17:30 at Dam Square. During the fan walk, supporters shout slogans in Hebrew. Afterwards, it appears that these include highly offensive, racist expressions. At the front walks a group wearing face coverings.

> Around midnight, Maccabi Tel Aviv rioters gather at Central Station and move towards the city centre. Along the way, they equip themselves with materials such as metal rods and stones. Stones are also thrown at taxis.

It sounds like maccabi rioters started it.

[amiga386]

> Didn't feel the need to mention the lead-up to this?

It's mentioned in the GP post. I'm in no way hiding or excusing what the hooligans were up to, only noting that the GP made an extremely one-sided statement, whereas the Amsterdam police statement covers all the disorder, including confirming what the GP said.

> It sounds like maccabi rioters started it.

And if there were no opponents to them, then it would only be Maccabi hooligans being arrested. But instead they had opponents who were equally ready to riot and use violence, including against random people who the attackers simply felt were Jewish or Israeli.

I put it to you that the Maccabi hooligans were not the only thugs in Amsterdam that week.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> And if there were no opponents to them, then it would only be Maccabi hooligans being arrested. But instead they had opponents who were equally ready to riot and use violence, including against random people who the attackers simply felt were Jewish or Israeli.

If there were no maccabi fans rioting and assaulting people the attackers simply felt were Palestinian or Muslim, then it would be peace in the street. Indeed, the responding violence seems to have been a predictable result of the initiating maccabi rioter violence.

Put yourself in the same position: A lynch mob from outside your community marches through it, masked and clad in black so as to be unidentifiable. Some of their racist chants are threats against you, your community, your family, your children. Other racist chants celebrate an ongoing genocide of your family, friends, and people. They vandalize your community and attack members of it along the way. It would not be unreasonable or unprecedented for your community to respond by stomping this lynch mob into the gutters, or at least running it out of town.

[constantius]

> their words!

No... This is again the trope that anti-genocide == antisemitism.

Might be the words of one person, but you find crazies everywhere. In this specific case, according to all the foltage I've seen, on one side you had a group celebrating the death of children while their country perpetrates a genocide, on the other you had people by and large talking about punishing that behaviour.

So I'm pretty sure their words were "Free Palestine".

[amiga386]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/12/18/ams...

> There was some planned coordination — among taxi drivers and other locals who used messaging apps to organize a show of force, with at least one chat referring to a “Jew hunt.” Those conversations took place after, and in many cases in response to, episodes the night before the match, when Maccabi supporters pulled down a Palestinian flag and damaged a taxi. Neither The Post nor Dutch investigators came across plans for orchestrated violence in the days ahead of the match.

> The Post found that the violence that unfolded was not one-sided. Israeli fans were harassed, chased and in some cases beaten. But video of one of the earliest post-match altercations, shared by multiple news organizations as an example of attacks on Israelis, in fact shows Maccabi supporters as the aggressors.

Both the racist hooligans, and locals, brought violence upon each other, and innocent people.

Neither side's provocations are justified. Neither side's violence is justified. Both groups harmed entirely innocent people.

Here are some quotes from a group of taxi drivers organising reciprocal violence. I'm highlighting them to show that the locals are not exclusively innocent people ravaged by ultras, they also rioted indiscriminately. The rest of the article goes into much further detail about the actions of all parties, and I recommend you read it in full.

> “TOMORROW AFTER THE GAME AT NIGHT PART 2 JEW HUNT,” someone wrote in a WhatsApp group just before 4 a.m.

> After the match, a Telegram group normally used by taxi drivers for traffic updates tracked the fans’ movements from the stadium to the central metro station. “Jews are arriving we are waiting for them brother be ready,” a group member posted at 11.33 p.m.

> At 11:45 p.m., Sektioui posted the first of a series of images and videos showing Cobra firecrackers, some of which are strapped to bottles labeled as paint thinner. Those firecrackers are illegal in the Netherlands, even without modifications to increase their explosive power.

[dundarious]

> when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment

This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.

[tome]

> > when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment

> This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.

Sorry, what treatment are you talking about exactly? Your parent seems to be referring to the treatment of being "blocked from attending by the police/council". Is that what you mean is often doled out to clubs/fans?

[dundarious]

Yes, that's the precise type of treatment I'm talking about: prevented from attending a football game due to security concerns or penalty for poor behavior.

[tome]

Individual fans are frequently banned. How many other occasions can you name where no away fans were permitted at a game?

[dundarious]

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/15326456/rangers-shoc...

It happens often enough in European football. Search "away fans ban uefa -maccabi" online. You can also look at official UEFA sites, but they often list partial bans (e.g., ban from a particular section of the stadium) in a way that I can't distinguish from complete bans.

https://www.uefa.com/running-competitions/disciplinary/stadi...

[crote]

This happens all. the. time.

For example, at any duel between Ajax and Feyenoord the away fans have been banned - since 2009. The Den Haag municipality banned away fans at ADO Den Haag - Ajax games for over 10 years. NAC - Willen II didn't allow away fans during the 2022 season. Fans misbehaved badly enough during N.E.C. - Vitesse games that they were threatened with a 10-year ban on away fans. Amsterdam banned the Italian fans at Ajax - SS Lazio in 2024, due to repeated antisemitism and racism. Lille didn't allow Ajax fans during their game last January. In 2023 the Amsterdam police seriously considered banning all away fans during all high-risk European games.

And that's just the first few results of a trivial search for a single country. I could probably find a hundred more without much effort.

[Matl]

OP is sharing facts, not 'view points'.

[pydry]

They were banned because during a match in Amsterdam they shouted racist abuse, sang racist songs, did plenty of vandalism, threw an innocent member of the public into a river and assaulted Muslim taxi drivers.

Moreover, most of them have military training which makes the racist abuse, vandalism and assault that much more terrifying.

If an antisemitic football team was half that bad they'd be hauled off to prison never mind banned from football matches.

[bhouston]

Yup, Amsterdam is looking to ban future participation of Maccabi fans as a result:

https://www.trtworld.com/article/86ebbfd8eada

[beejiu]

It later transpired the real reason the Police wanted to ban the group:

"West Midlands Police did have "high confidence intelligence" that members of the local community in Birmingham were planning to arm themselves to attack Maccabi supporters."

https://news.sky.com/story/ai-evidence-a-fake-match-and-misl...

[physicsguy]

And yet the SAB downgraded the risk to fans from High to Medium in their report...

[gadders]

Well, that's not accurate either.

Because the police didn't want to upset the "local community" (which is predominantly Muslim), they hunted around for reasons to ban them as that was easier than EG enforcing the law and stopping people getting attacked by mobs.

It's just more two tier policing in the UK.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Do you mean the West Midlands is predominantly muslim?

[gadders]

I don't know the make up of all of the West Midlands, sorry.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

You say the local community is predominantly muslim.

[gadders]

What do you consider local to Aston Villa's ground?

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I don't understand what you are asking. You said the local community is predominantly muslim. What did you mean by that?

[amiga386]

The local community near Aston Villa's grounds, Villa Park, is predominantly Muslim.

Take a look at this map of data from the 2011 census. The dark green lumps in the north-west (>70% Muslim) and the green lumps surrounding them (45%-70% Muslim) are Perry Barr. The whitish lump (0%-5% Muslim) immediately to the east of a dark green lump is Aston.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Islam_Birmingham_201...

May I introduce you to the local MP?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/oct/17/keir-s...

> But the decision has been welcomed by Ayoub Khan, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, the constituency where the match will take place. He organised a petition calling for the match to be either cancelled, relocated or held behind closed doors [...]

> Khan is one of the five independent MPs elected at the last election wholly or partly because of their outright opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza and his petition suggests that his opposition to the match going ahead is motivated as much by the desire to make a political point about Israel’s conduct as by concerns about the risk of violence. The petition cites three reasons why the match should not go ahead. One is the “track record of violence by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans”, but the others are the “ongoing genocide in Gaza” and the “wider European context”. The petition says:

> As Israel continues its assault on Gaza, killing thousands and devastating civilian infrastructure, sporting fixtures involving Israeli teams cannot be separated from the wider political context. Hosting such teams sends a message of normalisation and indifference to mass atrocities.

With this in mind, perhaps you can see there was as much a political and sectarian religious element to WMP's decision as there was a security element.

[constantius]

Don't know what the "wider European context" is, but a public official campaigning to boycott and sanction a country carrying out a genocide is not in any way bad. That the UK authorised that match to happen instead of sanctioning Israel is the shameful part, not Khan's conduct.

And your opinion about there being a "religious sectarian element" is very subjective even though it's presented as fact. People from Arabic/Middle-Eastern countries (who are majority Muslim) are indeed especially sensitive to Israel's apartheid/killings, but that has much more to do with their own marginalisation and history than with their religion I'd wager. As evidence, I'm sure these matches were happily going along before Israel started killing 100 people per day, no?

In short, that a public official did the right thing when his country's government couldn't is, again, laudable.

This is I think the third reply I make to you, not because I follow you around, but because every time I read a post full of "implications" and concern for the innocent citizens having to deal with evil people, it happens to be you posting it...

[gadders]

The people of Gaza are a bit like a somebody that climbed into a cage with a lion, hit it with a cricket bat, and then start crying when it retaliated.

If the people of Gaza actually possessed the inclination to create a functioning state with a football team, that team would obviously have been banned after the mass rapes and murder on October 7th.

[amiga386]

You seem to have chosen one specific viewpoint, and are lauding those that you already agree with.

Birmingham's Jewish community is under attack. That's not coming from nowhere, it's coming from people riled up about Gaza, finding an excuse to attack innocent people in the UK:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvdxrr0mxpo

I have no love of football hooligans. But I'm not blind to the implications of a police force favouring one group of people over another. It's WMP's duty to protect all citizens, including from each other. They clearly failed in their duty here, especially because they were caught out with a hallucinated post-hoc justification for their decision.

I'll repeat what I said earlier: If you're angry about Israel and Palestine, don't take it out on Jews in the UK. Don't assume Jews support Israel or the IDF, don't assume Muslims support Palestine or Hamas. Thanks.

[constantius]

First: before speaking about the Jewish community, go to a protest, you'll find plenty of them there. The Jewish community is not under attack, the tired "antizionism/antigenocide = antisemitism" trope doesn't fly much nowadays. I'd be extremely certain that a lot of those who voted for that mayor, and who campaigned for the football match to be cancelled, and who got ready to bash the fans if need be were Jewish people (haven't been to a single protest without Jews being represented and very vocal about their protest of the genocide).

Second: believe it or not, but for hours after writing that comments, it kept popping up in my head until I realised what I was doing.

I'm arguing with someone who:

- during an ongoing genocide harps on about the great injustice done to genocide-celebrating football fans

- plays the moderate by saying we should all defer to the public authorities (the good ones, those that don't do anything, not the public authorities like Khan, who is a dishonest guy who wouldn't even have gotten elected if there hadn't been a genocide around in the first place)

- mentions that indeed, it's complicated, there are problems on both sides, etc. The sides you're equivocating being a group of pretty much Nazi football fans and the (gasp) the Muslamists!

- jumps into a comment about Muslims being the problem whipping out a Muslim map of Birmingham. Imagine any other discussion about risks of violence and someone helpfully jumping in with a "Jew map" or "Chinese map" and making dark innuendos about the Jewish mayor. And then has the gall to squeak out "and don't you dare be an islamophobe"!

- is all over the discussion, making disingenuous, weaselly arguments.

Again, stop reading opinion pieces on WP and looking at Muslim maps, go to a protest, you'll see you're imagining things.

[midlander]

The irony of anti-“Zionists” making Jews feel unsafe and unwelcome in the UK is that those Jews are then more likely to immigrate to Israel.

[bhouston]

Maccabi fans were also found guilty by the UEFA governing body just in December of racist chants (referring to an Arab-Israeli as a "terrorist") in a separate episode:

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/47336888/maccabi-tel-...

And their fans did a racist rampage again Palestinian Arabs just the other day:

https://www.newarab.com/news/maccabi-fans-attack-palestinian...

[tome]

Maccabi Tel Aviv have been travelling to Europa League away matches every few weeks:

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/clubs/57477--m-tel-avi...

Why is it only Birmingham that saw fit to ban them?

[bhouston]

> Why is it only Birmingham that saw fit to ban them?

Huh? Amsterdam is also looking to ban them:

https://www.trtworld.com/article/86ebbfd8eada

The main European football association also found them guilty recently of anti-Arab racist chants and fined, gave them a "suspended one-match away fan ban":

https://news.sky.com/story/maccabi-tel-aviv-fc-given-fan-ban...

[hexbin010]

> Why is it only Birmingham that saw fit to ban them?

It's a complete mystery...